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The Stevie / Marvin Series: Marvin Appreciation Post #1

By June 3, 2009Misc, Music, Podcasts

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Presenting the first in a series of posts celebrating the legacies of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. Damien of KO and King Midas of HISD teamed up to cover Marvin, while Flash Gordon Parks of HISD provided the same treatment for Stevie.

Today we give you Marvin. Friday, Stevie’s coming to town.

Breakdowns and track listing after the jump.

It started with a phone call a few weeks ago. I looked at the caller ID.  Midas.  When I answered, he responded with a question:  “Marvin or Stevie?” I didn’t really know what the question meant, but without thinking twice I replied “Marvin”. It seems like i’d caught the tail end of one of HISD typically animated “arguments”, with each party extolling praises upon the artist that influenced them the most. I have no idea how this discussion began, but I go caught up in it.

To avoid boring you with all the details, i’ll cut to the end: everybody was so fired up that we decided to split into teams and cover both artists. Midas and I chose Marvin; Flash volunteered for Stevie. The goal was to create two podcasts that highlight each side’s favorite tracks, along with discussion about what each artist contributed to the world of music.

To be clear, this is not a “who’s better than who” series. It’s generally accepted that each was great in their own right, with Stevie being one of the most revered artists in the world, and Marvin being one of the greatest singer / songwriters that ever lived. This series is an appreciation of both, with insight from the people that live, create,  and play music because Marvin and Stevie laid the groundwork for them.

For the Marvin podcast, Midas and I honed in on what drew us to Marvin: in my eyes, Marvin had the same aesthetic qualities as Hip Hop, in both  rhythm and persona. He plastered his life on a wall for everyone to see, and was unapologetic in his honesty. For Midas, it was the “Jam Factor” – Marvin’s innate ability, much like James Brown before him, to put you in a trance with the rhythm. (He explains it in his own words on the podcast.) In creating this podcast, we stayed primarily in the 70s. He had a string of hits on the 50s and 60s, but we didn’t even take it there. We went right into his “Golden Years”. Hope you enjoy-

Track Listing for Marvin Appreciation Post #1:

  • “I Want You”
  • “Soon I’ll Be Loving You Again”
  • “You Sure Love To Ball”
  • “Just To Keep You Satisfied”
  • “Trouble Man”
  • “Cleo’s Apartment”
  • “Sad Tomorrows”
  • “What’s Going On”
  • “Anna’s Song”
  • “Anger (Extended Alternate Take)
  • “Closing Theme / I want You (Live)”

And in case you thought we left something out – wait till part 2 to see if we catch it then…

Damien

Founding member of K-OTIX / The Legendary KO. Unheralded jack of all trades. Spends most of his time these days creating moving pictures and writing some of the best material he's ever written. Likes dogs. Cats - meh.

10 Comments

  • dirkflowinski says:

    Marvin’s a beast!!!

  • king says:

    Marvin is the man, anybody who don’t know that is CRAZZYYY!!!!!!!!

  • SM says:

    This was just what I needed to help my work day move along. Looking forward to Part 2!

  • Erica says:

    This should be available to download so we can bump this on our ipod!

  • brothaSouL says:

    this podcast is so necessary. thanks, fellas. -SouL-

  • FWMJ says:

    it is, click download!

  • jedalus says:

    Beautiful, you opened my eyes to some tracks I should have been into decades ago

  • Dj Ill One says:

    The podcast was one of the best I`ve heard yet. It was funny that Damien mentioned “Here My Dear” and the story behind it because when I was younger,I would look through my father`s record collection to find joints to sample for beats(I was pause-mixing then). I would see several Marvin Gaye records and the condition of then would be pretty worn out,except for “Here My Dear”. that one looked like new. I asked him about this particular record and he told me the story behind it and said that he hated the record because of how he aired out his one-sided dirty laundry on the album. So ,I gave it a listen.I thought it was harsh at first,but as I got older and listened to it again,I heard the pain,the joy ,the regret. All the emotions that one can go through in a relationship. My elders are 50/50 with that album. Half say masterpiece,others say piece of s$%t. I just thought it was interesting how you and King Midas talked about that album and Marvin as a whole.

  • Damien says:

    ILL –

    My parents were the same way. They basically treated it O.C.’s 2nd album, where they were like “It’s okay, but he had better stuff.” I think they even gave it away to one of my older cousins. They were really into feel-good music at the time, so they had no interest in hearing about this drugged out soul singer who was bitching and whining about his love life.

    I’m just wondering if one day our kids will pick up a wack / underappreciated album and think it’s the greatest shit ever.

    I’m cool with that, as long as it’s not Yung Berg.

  • Terrence says:

    This is definently one of the best podcasts that I have heard. (and I am subscribed to a few different ones) This one is a music lovers dream! Insightfull, meaningfull and entertaining. I really do agree with Damien though. Sometimes you dont appreciate the music when it comes out when you are expecting what you heard the last time. Casual music listeners just dont get it at all, but we music lovers have to do better at not anticipating and just open our minds to true art.

    Classic podcast

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